Ukraine has maintained its independence as a sovereign state ever since.

Before its independence, Ukraine was typically referred to in English as "The Ukraine", but sources since then have moved to drop "the" from the name of Ukraine in all uses.

Ukrainian is the official language and its alphabet is Cyrillic.

The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy, which has strongly influenced Ukrainian architecture, literature and music.

Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014 making it the largest country entirely within Europe and the 46th largest country in the world.